Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez raised a new national flag with changes that he said pay tribute to independence hero Simon Bolivar but that critics called frivolous and wasteful.
The flag debuted on Sunday features a white horse galloping left instead of right, an additional star, a bow and arrow representing Venezuela's indigenous people and a machete to represent the labor workers, among other changes.
Thousands of the president's supporters and soldiers marched in a parade dedicated to the new flag as army helicopters and F-16 warplanes swooped overhead.
PHOTO: AP
Floats, dancers and troops paraded past Chavez, while his opponents held a smaller, boisterous march to protest the new flag.
Chavez hoisted the flag, applauded and smiled as soldiers stood at attention during a ceremony on the 200th anniversary of Venezuela's tricolor flag.
Critics have slammed the changes a waste of money.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
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